1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to providing a system for thermal control of an outdoor pet enclosure. More particularly, this invention concerns a system for transferring ambient air from a house to an external pet enclosure.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Typically, in those households that have pets, the pet owners may prefer the pet to remain outside or to remain outside the house during certain times of the day, such as night time. In these cases, pet owners often provide the pet with some type of enclosure into which the pet may enter at will. For those pets that are not naturally equipped to handle extreme weather conditions such as very high or low temperatures, the pet owners must either shave the pet if the temperature is very warm and the pet has an abundance of fur, or provide some type of garment for the pet if the temperature is low and the pet lacks sufficient fur. In those cases where the pet owners fails to provide the above-mentioned aids, the pet must endure the adverse weather conditions with a possible result that the pet will suffer sickness or even death.
Thus, pet owners who have outside pet enclosures for pets who normally live outside the house, as for "outside" dogs and the like, must be careful of injury to such pets from extreme summer heat or from extreme winter cold. Even if such pet owners look into existing means for thermal control of such pet enclosures, such pet owners are typically faced with expensive and/or cumbersome devices, such as air conditioning units or heating units expressly designed for pet enclosures. Further, even such expensive and/or cumbersome systems may expose the pet to danger or hot or moving parts--or may expose the thermal devices to harm from the action of the pet.
In order to overcome these difficulties, the prior art has disclosed various means by which pet owners may attempt to maintain a comfortable environment for the pet. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,827,872 issued to William R. Sommers discloses an outside animal shelter in which an inner cavity of the shelter is equipped with an electric heating unit and temperature sensing controllers. But systems such as that one are impracticable and expensive for many pet owners, require outside electricity, which may be inefficient, and deal with only either heat or chill, but not both, etc.
Thus it would be a boon to owners of "outside" pets having outside pet enclosures, especially in very warm summer or very cold winter locations, to be able to have a low-cost and efficient system for thermal control, heating or cooling, of pet enclosures which system is not harmful to the pet or exposed to harm from the pet.